The Effects of Victim Age, Perceiver Gender, and Parental Status on Perceptions of Victim Culpability When Girls or Women Are Sexually Abused

It Happens in #ChurchToo: Twitter Discourse Regarding Sexual Victimization Within Religious Communities

This study sought to characterize online disclosure of, and reactions to, sexual violence victimization via the Twitter hashtag #ChurchToo, which emerged following the hashtag #MeToo as a call for disclosure of victimization within religious contexts. Thematic content analysis of 1,017 original content, English-language tweets containing the hashtag was conducted. Twitter users who chose to disclose personal experiences of violence often shared specific details about their abuse and described institutional harm they experienced. Institutional harm included negative responses from their religious communities (e.g., minimizing, denying, blaming, and silencing). Among tweets categorized as responses to disclosure, subthemes included both positive (e.g., raising awareness, emotional support) and negative (e.g., distracting and egocentric) reactions. The commentary on Twitter reflected a concerted desire to establish accountability for perpetrators of interpersonal violence within religious communities. These data highlight the importance of providing education to religious communities on how to best support and respond to individuals who experience victimization perpetrated by religious leaders or another member of the religious community.

The Prevalence of Child Sexual Abuse among Slovak Late Adolescents

The present study aimed to assess the prevalence and characteristics of child sexual abuse (CSA) in a large-scale sample of Slovak late adolescents. Randomized cluster sampling was used to sample 2186 students in their final school year of secondary school with mean age of 18.6 years (SD = .7 years). The study employed the Child Sexual Abuse Questionnaire consisting of multiple behavior-specific questions. The prevalence of CSA was analyzed separately for three clusters of CSA and gender. The prevalence of non-contact forms of CSA was 40.6% among girls and 17.7% among boys. CSA with physical contact without penetration was reported by 30.2% girls and 11.6% boys. The prevalence of CSA with penetration was 5.6% among girls and 1.3% among boys. More than half of CSA occurred between 16 and 18 years of age. The severity of abuse was positively associated with acquaintance to the perpetrator. Roughly 43-56% disclosed the abuse to another person. The majority of disclosed CSA was revealed to peers and partners. A negligible proportion of CSA instances were reported to the police. Prevention activities should consider a broad spectrum of CSA in order to counteract tendencies to associate CSA only with unwanted sexual intercourse.